SHAWMUT

A Bostonian, using the name of the old Native American site. Vintage 1941. A Veteran (RA) and spokesman on intelligence.
May the last words to be said about me, and affirmed by whomever might be present, are, "He pledged allegiance to his Flag and the United Staes of America......"
In spite of the social mandates obeyed by many people in this country, my life need not be your pageant. I'm rather conservative.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

I can't seem to leave other people's observations alone. (I'm the "DBO", just a pedestrian commenting on this way through life and the guy who's about to kick the football his big brother is holding.)

A pretty easonable observer penned a great profile of the mind-set of a person that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has the august opportunity to save from academia and plop into a US Senate seat.

Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts candidate for the US Senate, says, "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody." And so she is said to reject that it is possible for Americans to become wealthy "in isolation." (As if someone defended that silly idea!)

(DBO - {From below) "She's not going insane trying to draw out the creativity of future contributors to the arts, nor creating matrices to further the minds of mathematicians, nor explaining the sovereignty of nature's laws {I'll pass on the slide-rule comparison of understanding real numbers} {as a self-confronting fiscal eight-ball, I won't qualify to comment}; she muses about the work of those who teach as she squats among those who leach.")

So she sounds off about this, with evident righteousness, as follows:"You built a factory out there? Good for you ... But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did." And she goes on to declare, "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

(dbo - I hate to edit a good observer, but Dr. Tabor might have introduced out subject as: "Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts (Democrat) candidate for the US Senate.")

First of all, nothing at all follows from any of this about how Ms. Warren has any authority at all to rearrange the world her way. My nose and ears and kidneys and eyes weren't created on my own but none of that implies for a second that Elizabeth Warren is entitled to start invading my body and decide how its parts ought to be used. Nor even that my parents actually own me!Of course, property rights start simple enough and then become complex. But that is just why a free country has a law of property instead of Ms. Warren as a tyrant who orders us all to do as she wishes.

(DBO - Let's look at Liz' Weltanshauung: ""You built a factory out there?": "out there". Even in a debate arguments are generated from common ground; references and examples should be somewhat valid, if not for the opponent, but for those judging. And does"out there" suggests that building a factory, sweating over a ditch, pounding a beat, (musically or municipally), entering code, or abiding boredom behind a store counter is only a concept (Lego or mortar)? (And this Amazon comes to us out of an age when "feelings", and most critically "empathy", for another, not just like us, is politically correct.)

It is necessary to be careful about how property is properly allocated, with close attention to original and subsequent creation, with what has been voluntarily shared, given away, earned through work and exchange, etc. Why?Well, from the time of Aristotle it has been clear to quite a few political theorists and economists that common ownership sucks. As the ancient Greek sage put the point:"That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few." (Politics, 1262a30-37).Then there was Thucydides on the commons, noting that "they devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile, each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays." (Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, bk. I, sec. 141).So John Locke came along, who didn't even deny that to start with property is commonly owned but that it is best to create a system of private property so that property will be taken good care of and because those who work hard to improve it are justified in benefiting from it and make use of it as they see fit.So not only is Ms. Warren way off with her idea that the state gets to decide what happens to property and that there is some kind of unwritten – i.e., not consented to – social contract that obligates us all to give to the state. But it is a wasteful and bad idea, as the Soviets and other socialists who disallow private property in their realm have found out to everyone's despair.

(DBO - Obviously, Warren reflects the dictatorship of institutions, where tenure is the principle power. It's one of the steps of secular deification - (From which one may make forays and return to the safety of the 'keep' {as in 'kept'}). (She's almost as safe as the civil servant - who held back from speaking out on the obvious - 'go along to get along' - until retirement was vested - then Behear you! The outrage!) From her own perspective, she may be telling more truth about the AAA -Academic Amazon Ascendancy. Surely she didn't create her status: it was either legislated or presumed upon society by mood. {Professor Woody Allen may have been her advocate; {She Just showed up}}. But, that's only fitting for her realm and place compared to others who truly labor and work academics. She's not going insane trying to draw out the creativity of future contributors to the arts, nor creating matrices to further the minds of mathematicians, nor explaining the sovereignty of nature's laws, explaining Samuelson's "guns and butter", and the conversion of metal into products and employment yielding dynamics {I'll pass on the slide-rule comparison of understanding real numbers}{as a self-confronting fiscal eight-ball, I won't qualify to comment} ; she muses about the work of those who teach as she squats among those who leach.)

But of course it is not going to be easy to get agreement to statist redistribution policies if all this is admitted. So Warren needs to attempt the impossible and show that she, not you and I, gets to say what happens to what we own because how we obtained it involved other people! Again, it doesn't follow!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

There are many afflictions upon mankind that can be identified in qualified terms; corruption in politics, nihilism in philosophy, behavior in culture and everything from murder to simony in religion. Collectively, those areas of affliction could complement the fullness of society.

Today, we are looking at a predatory affliction that I see as a social affliction; a social disease, if you will. I call it Islamophilia. Given the ardor in negotiating against any examination of Islamic development, I look at this situation as a new chic - among some it has even become a radical chic; not unlike body piercing or tattoos, or the hirsuteness of the Sixties, and I term it impassioned Islamophilia. Let me emphasize I’m looking at its goal of totality.Now, the last thing I’m going to do is look at Western History and let it off with five “Our Fathers” and five “Hail Mary’s”. But before historical mavens get all excited, let me remind us all that we have labored and campaigned to exorcise our demons; and we do yet. Clio, that Muse of History, bears a pretty hefty conscience.

And, before I sound as though I’m going to lecture, let me advise you, I have no such license.

In recent years we have been issued by the victim industry a new term: “Islamophobia” It’s been taken as the new secular sin. It is hurled about when one merely questions the appropriateness of the application of anything that is even remotely associated with Muslims as pertains to politics (world, national or provincial), philosophical, cultural or religious (again, I admit to my broad brush of the social). Even questioning text-books, mandatory diet inclusions to zoning ordinances in which the slightest inference of an Islamic factor is harshly challenged. It’s as though a fire was set.

Now, we’ll all rally to fight fires, but this victim element is pretty well lobbied. (They have contracted into their alarm systems professional “Jakes”.) We can look at the various associates that make up the advocacy for Muslims - From the Muslim Brotherhood subsidiaries to the corps of prison chaplains. And we can look at our fellows who find themselves unwittingly carrying their water.

I’m not going to fool myself in thinking that by the aforementioned some won’t already be arming themselves with constitutional arguments, UN mandates, and mollifications of noted clergy, sociologists, historians, intellectuals, the spiritual lottery players and cab-drivers.

Surely, it might appear that I’m brewing up a great storm cloud. So be it.

Go ahead. Indulge yourselves. Be outraged over “Islamophobia“. But remember, a phobia is an irrational fear, a sense of an alien terror that is not germane to reality. Fear, even irrational fear - phobia - is best defeated by courage. Are we afraid? Or are we just scared of our own prostituted system? Are we complacent in security or afraid to look at the vulnerability in our character and/or in our integrity (as we find it today)? (Interesting, we paved the country with diplomas and we misuse a simple term such as “phobia”.)

Again, “Fear, even irrational fear - phobia - is best defeated by courage.”

What I see as more at stake is the danger of impassioned, predatory and infectious Islamophilia.Each qualifier I’ve used is familiar in day to day parlance. Impassioned: base drives that neutralize the sense of risk. Predatory: overpowering the unfit or weak; intellectually or bodily. Infectious: metastasizing progress that when unchecked, less than suitably scanned, or sourced (as in history) becomes the dominant pathology.

There is high risk to the uninformed, the impassioned, the addicted and the social climbing radical chic when encountering infectious maladies. By the mere factor of human fallibility, we accept these tendencies. (‘He who has the stones, sin first!’) And failing to look at the devastation of earlier plagues only enhances the odds to strike again. One can trace the devastations of social diseases to before Muhammad’s first wife’s first headache. From apathy to deraignment, from lesions to fevers; records have survived. It’s not always been the poor and ignorant to succumb. The royal to the clergy, as well have fallen. It’s the novel and the unusual; from pills to mushrooms, from the ceremonial to the furtive.

Today, Islamophilia is being both chaperoned and pimped by the mercenary and elitist elements. Their minions are pushing the virus multipliers, relaxing the anti-toxins, pushing coupons to the red-light districts of their mosques and cultural exchange banks, and sponsoring free concert tickets to hear the malodorous words of the Sura’s; so romantic. So impassioning, So chic. And so historical. But , a history we don’t have to relive.

Remember: 1. Blind passion has fostered, even incubated, many a social disease. 2. Again, “Fear, even irrational fear - phobia - is best defeated by courage.” 3. And this is critical: While we may express concern over all this; while it was developing right here, we were right here.

Monday, September 13, 2010

For the past few weeks the country has been hearing from this Imam Rauf of New York and the US State Department, and his determination to build a mosque at Ground Zero.He has even claimed the Muslim World (The Cosmo-Ummah) might explode if it is not built.

Here's a thought. Let's put word out that people are secretly burning Korans. Think of being accused of being a Closet Crusader. Paranoia, apoplexy, social spasms and suspicion could cause something like a Parisian Traffic jamb. The PC'ers, Islamophiles and Islamoleptics will have their knickers twisted. If accused, demand proof; require a Habeas Libra. Watch for people who might have plain common pins under their lapels, drachmas in penny loafers, one eyelet not laced in a shoe and other furtive devices.

Hey, it's a negative they'd have to prove - Let's watch them try (I mean, they won't be hindered by logic). The way this issue and the country's going, let's have a ball with it. Let's sell tickets. Maybe house parties with guests bringing detritus from ash-trays. "Can you prove that that ash is not.....?" (Again - "they won't be hindered by logic"...watch them strain in proving a negative by affirmation of a suspicions - They‘d be scrambling for St. Thomas Aquinas.).

The money-maker here is publishing Korans for the sole purpose of burning. If they're bound in pig-skin there will be the double volatility: the substance and the art of good insult. (Better than curse "May the fleas on your camel once live on monkeys".)

Here's a twist: Remember, Imam Rauf suggested if the Zero Mosque isn't built, “Islam will explode”? Let’s reverse the hostage ploy: Let's offer Islam a chance to ransom Korans with their petro-dollars. (Hell, it could exceed the revenues of mailed products in presidential an election season - to say nothing about PAC's.)

With 1.57 billion Muslims, making up 23% of the world population, there could be quite a revenue. Whole classes of talibs might receive cinders documents to celebrate their graduations. We could issue receipts to show their imams. (And, if you act right now, we can issue you a photographed certificate with your debircsni eman - Oops! - name inscribed.) They' d trip over the hems of their thawbs trying to get them. Think of the revenues in pulp (cindered and used for publication). True copies should have water-marked pages. We could even use recycled paper from self-help, inner-self and how-to books or the defeatist US history school texts of the past fifty years. Price controls would have to be established to guarantee value. Only payment in US Currency or gold weight will be accepted. (State and local tax-exempt.) Hawala transfer not accepted.

Now, as the highest of motives tend to the human element of corruption, let's project into possible criminality: Kasbah entrepreneurs are likely to set up black markets of bogus receipts. Black markets cause inflation, and in theocracies this plan could be quite damaging. What we don't realize in revenues will be complemented by little chinks in local economies.

Who's Shawmut

Retired. A Veteran whose service was USA/CIC. and whose knowledge and interest in the that field is up to date; a cherished experience of my life; stayed close to the field over years. My life is open in many ways, but my sense of ethics will secure that which is of value to others.
In spite of social mandates obeyed by many homosexuals people in the country, I'm rather conservative. Prefer the term "Other" to "Gay"; a misnomer. And, I see no reason demanding my life circumstances should be a social pageant. Served as an Admin. Law Judge on a state board: GOP State Committee (12 years)(2nd Suffolk Sen.Dist.); Pres. Assn. Former Intel. Officers (And Nat'l Symposium Co-Chair). I'll call myself a pedestrian in this life, but I have been engaged in studies, seminars and forums on the current issue of terrorism since the 80's. I've been engaged in US Intelligence programs such as public speaking, guest on programs and have brought experience to the dialogue.
The kids I grew up with from 3 years on are still my friends now.
Membership: American Legion, Military Intelligence Corps Association, Association fo Former Intelligence Officers (Life Member).

"Americana"

With no due respect:I use the term 'Americana' quite frequently. It's that crowd I refer to who take great inspiration in articles they find in months-old magazines left in laundromats. It's often written by a waning celebrity thirteen-steps-short-of-twelve who's been 'in recovery' for two months (this time). Sometimes it’s written by not even a has-been, but by a would-be who succeeded in becoming a might-have-been. Dramatically, they would assign an element of guilt to others over war, trees, whales, rutting goats, and would impose on anyone in hearing, sight or sense, their sense of superiority as being the only people eligible of making judgements. Some will have made that achievement of higher education. (A fewer number of observers might ask; "Higher than what?")They'll be found following the lemmings who want to pay slavery reparations or buy $500 tickets for a 'Stonewall Minute' gay rights dinner. They believe in no-score sports, competition is seen a form of atavistic dysfunction, and they believe every issue can be solved by becoming add-water'n-stir victims or plaintiffs in discrimination suits. This specie is sterilized from perspective and can be programmed to vote. They don't formulate opinions based upon facts, but upon opinions of others they would emulate in style, dress, linguistics, glossies or the canned humor of late-nite TV - depending on how the late nite host is styled, dressed, speaks, etc.).They'll slip that magazine into their dried wear, never referring to again; that thunderclap of revelation no longer even an echo. To even remember to review it again it would exceed the capability of their attention span. Their sense of poignancy oxidizes with each breath. That magazine will balance an uneven table. These are the people, who, when led to the font of knowledge, will only gargle.

Blog Archive

A WORD ON MY WORDS

Once one becomes attuned to this blogosphere it's fair to say that other peoples' opinions allow a reader to be influenced by those met in this medium. Perceptions, ideals, and standards measure differently in all of us, and those whose comments I regard, I'll list on "Other Blogs to Read" and "My Links". Opinions I present stem from my experiences in this world; common and unique, and I dutifully share sources that I use.